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"THE FINE PRINT"

The musings of Michael Schrader

                             CUT PAY AND SEND HOME
(Published 1994 in the Farmington Press-Leader. Posted in toto with Preface and Epilogue 16 July 2001)

PREFACE -- As a taxpayer, one of the things that really, really irritates me is when I see government waste. As an engineer, I have seen many engineers overdesign government projects to enlarge their fees, knowing that the government will pay the inflated project costs. As a government official, I have seen government spend money on every new gadget that comes down the pike without any consideration of cost or necessity. After all, if the government runs out of money, it can raise taxes, and option not available to the private citizens whose budgets are taxed paying for the fiscal mismanagement of their government.

        Lamar Alexander, the former governor of Tennessee, has come up with a novel idea for reducing waste in government: cut their pay and send them home. Legislators, that is. He believes that legislators: a) earn too much, and b) waste time. And after all, time is money.
       Unfortunately, Governor Alexander has been ridiculed in the media as being unrealistic and "out-of-touch" for proposing such an idea. Is his idea really as preposterous as they say?
       The idea does have some merit, especially on a local level.   Whenever a local politico, say an alderman, claims he is an alderman only because he wants to serve the community, he should be held to that, and should be paid only a nominal stipend (say $100 per year). If a politico truly is only a politico to serve the common good, then that politico should have no objection to not taking a sizable stipend. After all, that money could be used for the common good.
        Governor Alexander's idea should be taken one step further. Not only should politicos' stipends be cut; bureaucrats and other government officials salaries should be based on the "least common denominator," that is, the salary of any decision-maker should equal the lowest salary of any citizen affected by that decision-maker's decisions. For example, those city officials who congratulated themselves on bringing $5-an-hour factory jobs to Farmington would have their pay reduced to $5-an-hour. For a city official making $36000 a year, the invoking of the "least common denominator" rule would net a savings in excess of $25000 a year for the salary of just that one official. For four officials, that savings would grow to $100,000. That's a lot of potholes that can be filled.
       For those who believe that the "least common denominator" rule is not enough, how about penalties for mistakes and errors with taxpayer money, i.e. the monetary value of any error or oversight made by a public official involving taxpayer money will be automatically deducted from that official's salary. This would provide a strong economic incentive on the part of public officials to ensure that there are no glaring oversights or errors with respect to expenditures of public monies. For example, say a road construction project is several hundred thousand dollars over budget. The officials responsible for allowing the project to be over budget would then be responsible for reimbursing the city for the cost of the overrun to the city. After all, why should the average taxpayer be held responsible for someone else's mistake?
         Implementation of any of these policies would revolutionize government, and return it to the form envisioned by the Founding Fathers: responsible, responsive, and representative.    Without the economic incentive of large cash stipends, elected leaders would once again consist of patriots concerned with helping fellow citizens rather than helping themselves. By tying the pay of government officials to the "lowest common denominator", the narcissism of so-called civic leaders who exist in a world insulated from the realities of the average citizen would cease to exist. There would be no more self-praise for creating five-dollar-an-hour jobs.
       In all probability, these policies will never be adopted. Tragically, without the adoption of such policies we will continue our transformation into the British system of oligarchy and feudalism that our ancestors fought against over two centuries ago.

EPILOGUE -- I have been separated from several jobs because of my belief in the concept of fiscal responsibility. I continue to fight this difficult fight, although many times it seems I am just shouting into the wind.